In various medical procedures, instruments are utilized to manipulate tissues during the procedure. A surgical instrument is a tool or device designed for performing a specific action or carrying out desired effects during a surgery or operation, such a manipulating tissue or providing access for viewing or for other instruments.
For example, during surgical procedures it is often necessary to retract tissue. A retractor is a surgical instrument by which a surgeon can either actively separate the edges of a surgical incision or wound, or can hold back underlying organs and tissues, so that body parts under the incision may be accessed and visualized. A surgeon may manipulate a retractor in one hand while operating another instrument, such as scalpel or other surgical instrument, in the other hand.
In addition to needing to retract tissues for access to underlying organs or tissues, the surgical site often has a significant amount of fluid (e.g. blood, pus, or cerebrospinal fluid) which can obscure the surgeon's view of the underlying organs and/or tissues. In order to address this concern, suction may be applied to remove the fluid and clear the surgical site. Unfortunately, under current technologies, the suction must be obtained from a third instrument. This limitation either requires the surgeon to put down one of the two instruments already in the surgeon's hands to apply suction or the presence of a medical assistant to operate the suction instrument in the surgical field. Because of the limited and crowded nature of a surgical site, especially during minimally invasive surgery or in small surgical sites, having a medical assistant manipulating instruments in the surgical site can be cumbersome and potentially harmful.
There is, therefore, a long-standing, but unmet need for a surgical instrument that overcomes the deficiencies in the prior art and provides for an effective way to dissect and retract tissue and simultaneously suction the surgical site to provide a clear and safe operative field.